Charlotta Lindell

Physical child abuse in Sweden : A study of police reports between 1986 and 1996

Abstract  Background: This study aims at investigating physical child abuse in Sweden during 1986–1996, a period when alarm was being raised about an increased number of police reports on physical child abuse. The study focuses on abuse committed by a parent or carer and aims at analyzing the victim and the perpetrator, family environment, injuries and judicial consequences of physical abuse. Method: All police reports on physical child abuse (0–14 years old) in a designated police district in Sweden during 1986–1996 were examined, as well as any judicial proceedings that followed. Results: Our research yielded three major findings. Firstly, a large part of the increased number of police reports had to do with violence outside the family: 145 children (0.5 per 1000 children) were found abused within the families, by a parent or a carer. Secondly, there was a tendency toward males abusing boys and females abusing girls, and the biological father was the most frequent suspected perpetrator. Thirdly, 20% of the police reports led to prosecutions, and the investigations were time consuming. Known risk factors for physical abuse, such as unemployment, violent spouse relations, substance and drug abuse and poor mental health were found in several families, often among the prosecuted perpetrators. When examining incidence of physical abuse, Sweden was comparable to the other Scandinavian countries, where legislation and social context are similar. Conclusions: The numbers of physically abused children that have been reported to the police in Sweden has increased during the investigated period. Familiar risk factors are present in our study, accompanied by new findings, such as, for instance, a gender preference towards the abuse victim.

Traumatic experiences and dissociative symptoms among Swedish adolescents. A pilot study using Dis-Q-Sweden.

The aim of this study was to explore the occurrence of dissociative symptoms in relation to reported traumatic experiences among adolescents. A normative sample of 216 adolescents and a clinical sample of 30 cases with a history of traumatization were given the Swedish translation of Dissociation Questionnaire, DIS-Q. The results showed that 8.8% of the adolescents reported scores above the cut-off score of 2.5 on the Dis-Q-Sweden, with a female–male ratio of 2.6:1. In the normative sample, 53 (24.5%) of the adolescents reported one or more trauma experiences. The adolescents who self-reported trauma experiences in the normative sample scored higher on the total Dis-Q-Sweden scores and on three of the four subscales compared to the adolescents with no such experiences. The clinical group exhibited significantly higher Dis-Q-Sweden scores than the normative sample on every scale, with 60% above the cut-off score. The study confirms the results from earlier studies that adolescents with a history of trauma exhibit more dissociative symptoms in this study according to Dis-Q-Sweden. The impact of trauma qualities and background factors on the development of dissociative symptoms need to be studied further.

Severe child abuse : A study of cases reported to the police

Aim: To investigate the characteristics of severe abuse of children and possible differences in comparison with less severe abuse.

Mental health services provided for physically abused children in Sweden. A 4-year follow-up of child and adolescent psychiatric charts

As there has been a considerable increase regarding the number of police reports on physical child abuse in Sweden since the mid-1980s, there should be an increased number of children in need of trauma-focused mental health treatment. During 1986–1996, there were 126 children reported as being physically abused by a parent or equivalent and reported to the police in a police district in Sweden. Fifty-seven of these children (45%) had been the objects of interventions from Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services (CAPS). The aim of this study was to investigate the extent and content of this. Questions addressed were: when did the children receive interventions, were these trauma-focused and could this be reflected in their charts? This group of children was referred to CAPS for different reasons and 35/122 referrals were made under the label of child physical abuse. Overall, interventions were mainly directed toward the parents. Six of 126 physically abused children received individual therapy. Abuse was not mentioned in the charts for 23 of the children, even though eight of them had been referred due to abuse. The results of this study indicate that physically abused children have often been in contact with mental health services prior to the abuse for different reasons, initially due to individual problems and later on regarding family conflict. Individual interventions for physically abused children were rare due to for instance CAPS workloads, poor motivation among parents and children, and maybe due to professionals’ lack of knowledge regarding effective treatment. The introduction of a routine checklist is recommended early on to find indications of abuse, as is the need of exploring methods working with physically abused children in Sweden.